As a researcher at the Sau Po Centre on Ageing, I have experienced genuine excitement about what AI can bring to my daily work. Tasks that once kept me at the table for hours, such as organising literature, cleaning data, and developing preliminary codes, can now be completed at a speed I had never imagined. I value this efficiency, and I am more inspired by the new possibilities AI creates for research.
However, it is important to recognise that AI is not a panacea. Using AI responsibly requires me to remain attentive to the accuracy of its outputs, the privacy of research data, and the biases it may reproduce. AI can support my judgement, but it cannot replace my responsibility as a researcher.
More importantly, in my work at the Sau Po Centre on Ageing, the time saved through AI has allowed me to spend more time with the people at the heart of our research: older adults, carers, community partners, and frontline practitioners. It creates more opportunities for me to listening to and learning from them, discuss challenges arising on the front line, and understand the contexts that an algorithm cannot fully capture. Through visits to different research sites, I can spend more time exchanging ideas with participants, listening to their experiences, and noticing subtle shifts in tone, expression, and behaviour that may never appear in field notes, interview transcripts, or questionnaire responses. These human encounters are essential to understanding the lived realities of the people and communities involved in our research. Though AI is developing at a breathtaking pace, it cannot replace these human encounters and the trust, empathy, and mutual understanding they create, as least for now.
AI is a powerful technical tool, and tools should be used in the service of people, not the other way around. I embrace AI because it clears some of the clutter from my desk. Yet embracing AI becomes truly meaningful only when the time and capacity it creates are reinvested in understanding and improving people’s lives. I hold on to the conversations, presence, professional judgement, and human moments that cannot be delegated to an algorithm. That is the work worth keeping.
By: Nan XIA, Senior Research Assistant
Email: nxia@hku.hk